CULLUM, LANDON HAYNES

CULLUM, LANDON HAYNES (1889–1961). Landon H. (Shino) Cullum, oilman, the son of Jacob Davis and Eudona (Haynes) Cullum, was born in Dallas, Texas, on February 25, 1889. He studied engineering and participated in athletics at the University of Texas. In 1911–12 he worked on the construction of an interurban rail line between Waco and Dallas for Stone and Webster; the following year he worked for the Pacific Railroad Maintenance of Way Department. From 1913 to 1915 he was an engineer for the Gulf Oil Corporation, first at Beaumont and later in the Wichita Falls area. He was a zone agent in the land department from 1915 to 1918.

In 1918 he joined J. J. Perkins, Frank Kell,qqv and R. O. Harvey to form the Harvey Lease Account, one of the strongest and most profitable independent oil firms in the state. They opened the South Electra field and operated in the North Texas, Ranger, Desdemona, and other fields. In 1922 the firm was sold to Magnolia Petroleum Companyqv for a seven-figure sum. Cullum and Perkins formed the Perkins-Cullum Production Company, which successfully operated in many fields in Texas and Oklahoma. Cullum was one of the organizers of the Texas Division of the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, president of the North Texas Oil and Gas Association in 1935–36, and active in other independent oil groups. His other business interests included buildings in Wichita Falls, farms, and ranches.

He was a member of the first board of trustees of Hardin Junior College at Wichita Falls. He served from 1941 to 1957, during which time Hardin became a four-year college, expanded its campus, added a graduate department, and changed its name to Midwestern University. He was active in University of Texas projects, including the Athletic Council, the Committee of Seventy-five Development Board, and the Ex-Students' Association, of which he was president. He was instrumental in securing passage of the first oil conservation and proration laws in Texas. He was a member of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a director of City National Bank from 1927 until his death, and a director of the local chamber of commerce and Community Chest. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and a thirty-second-degree Mason. On May 28, 1921, he was married to Leila Beall Anderson of Wichita Falls; they had three children. Cullum died on August 15, 1961, and was interred in the mausoleum at Crestview Memorial Park, Wichita Falls.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Alcalde (magazine of the Ex-Students' Association of the University of Texas), May 1940, December 1949. Ellis A. Davis and Edwin H. Grobe, comps., The New Encyclopedia of Texas, 2-vol. ed. John D. Palmer, "Glimpses of the Desdemona Oil Boom," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 15 (1939). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Who's Who in the South and Southwest, Vol.2.

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